the smiths

how about some fiction for a change? it happens oh so very very rarely. enjoy!

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Mr. and Mrs. Smith grew up together. She was the Mary Jane to his Peter Parker all through secondary school. They shared a secret life together, even as very young children. When it was uncool, at the age of 7, to play with girls, Mr. Smith still went over to Mrs. Smith’s to color and make up stories with her. It was around that age—the distinctly uncool age to be with the opposite sex—that Mr. and Mrs. Smith promised to marry each other, and shared their very first kiss.

There were rough patches in their relationship, as in any. For example, Mrs. Smith went through a particularly academic phase while away at a big, snobby (in Mr. Smith’s opinion anyway) university where her dreams were filled with philosophical musings. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith apprenticed at a mechanical engineering firm which specialized in motion-sensor soap dispensers while attending night classes at a small, local college. At this time, they both saw other people.

They saw each other at the holidays, when Mrs. Smith came home. They humored each other with pleasantries, but learned how distinctly incompatible they really were. Though sweethearts, and terribly fond of one another, Mr. and Mrs. Smith expected different things from life. Mr. Smith wanted to invest in property while the market was good. Mrs. Smith wanted to travel obscure corners of the globe. Mr. Smith had a steady job, a car, drank coffee he made at home each morning, and enjoyed Douglass Adams novels. Mrs. Smith had two degrees in the humanities, a friend with a cottage in Greece, drank matte yerba after a long night of political discussion with visiting scholars and spent a lot of money on odd looking shoes.

Both lovely in their own respects. Both secretly admiring the strength and fearlessness of the other.

There was one whimsical summer romance between Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But as the leaves changed color and the cold set in, Mrs. Smith grew restless and Mr. Smith grew tired of her fancies. They split again.

They had, at once, given up on each other and dismissed their promise to one another of marriage in a heated battle of words and one unfortunate platter which, at the time, was covered in an array of sticky cheeses which, try as they might have, could not keep the platter from shattering into a significantly large number of small pieces. The carpet also suffered from the incident.

After many years of dissonance, Mr. and Mrs. Smith came upon each other in an office of all places.

This little office belonged to a coroner. This coroner, whose office was set adjacent to the hospital where both Mr. and Mrs. Smith had been seen into this world, had asked both Mr. and Mrs. Smith into his office to confirm the identify a body.

In the weeks previously, Mr. and Mrs. Smith had both reported a missing person; a close friend each had, very separately, kept in touch with over the years. This friend was called Janet. Mr. Smith walked Janet’s odd collection of dogs several times each week in exchange for the use of her garage where he kept the parts he was collecting to build his dream super car. Mrs. Smith had read the travel journals Janet wrote as a young woman and they spoke extensively over the phone after every one of Mrs. Smith’s adventures abroad.

Mr. Smith noticed Janet wasn’t home one Thursday afternoon and that her dogs hadn’t been fed. Needless to say, Mr. Smith took care of the animals, and as a second day passed and Janet had not been seen, Mr. Smith reported the woman missing.

Although she was miles away, Mrs. Smith had also noticed Janet’s absence. The two had arranged to speak the day after Mrs. Smith’s return from Botswana. Janet never missed an opportunity to speak with Mrs. Smith about her adventures. After several days of no answer to her phone calls, Mrs. Smith phoned the local authorities, asking if they would check in on the woman to see she was alright.

As surprised as Mr. and Mrs. Smith were to see each other after so many years of silence, they were equally surprised to see that the woman under the white sheet on the coroner’s table was indeed their mutual friend Janet.

They never found out what happened to Janet.

But they did some catching up, adopted Janet’s odd collection of dogs together, and invited Janet’s sisters to their wedding reception which took place a mere three months after Janet’s mysterious death.

They honeymooned in Greece and Mr. Smith got his super car running just three days prior to the birth of their first child.

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